The present invention relates to an incubator, more particularly to an incubator and a method for making the atmosphere uniform in an incubator storage box used in culture of cells and microorganisms.
The incubator is known as an apparatus used in culture of microorganisms and cells, and biochemical process such as biochemical reaction. The incubator comprises a storage box for containing samples of culture and test, and a function of maintaining the environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity in the storage box. Generally, for the purpose of processing multiple samples in same environmental conditions, multiple samples are put in the incubator. For example, multiple layers of sample racks are placed in the storage box, and multiple samples are put on multiple racks. These samples must be kept in uniform environmental conditions, and the conventional incubators had blowers and other air agitating means in the storage box in order to distribute temperature and humidity uniformly inside.
However, the conventional agitation by blowing air was not sufficient in the agitating effect in the incubator comprising multiple layers of sample racks in order to contain as many samples as possible in the storage box of a limit volume. It is because the draft effect by a simple draft fan hardly permeates deeply into narrow gaps. With the conventional incubator, therefore, it is difficult to maintain the internal environmental conditions uniformly and the reliability of biochemical processing is not assured.
It is hence an object of the invention to present an incubator capable of maintaining the internal environmental conditions uniformly and having an excellent reliability.
A incubator of the invention comprises a storage box, a sample rack movably disposed in the storage box, a moving device for moving the sample rack, and a controller for controlling the moving device. The controller has a function of selectively controlling the positioning operation for positioning the sample rack at predetermined positions, and the agitating operation for agitating the atmosphere in the storage box uniformly by moving the sample rack.
A method for making the atmosphere uniform in the incubator storage box of the invention comprises (a) a step of supplying the incubator, in which the incubator comprises the storage box, and a sample rack is movably disposed in the storage box and moving device for moving the sample rack, (b) a step of putting samples on the sample rack, (c) a step of setting the atmosphere in the storage box in a predetermined environment, and (d) a step of agitating the atmosphere in the storage box by moving the sample rack.
In this constitution, the environmental condition in the incubator is agitated to be uniform. In particular, if the incubator has multiple sample racks with complicated shapes, the environmental condition in the incubator can be maintained uniformly.